McKenzie puts his bet on Dennis Allen: Trust, faith, accountability… with the Raiders!

–10:05 p.m. update: Fox Sports is reporting that Dennis Allen has offered the Raiders’ OC job to Houston QB coach Greg Knapp, who, of course, is very familiar to Bay Area fans due to his OC stints with the Raiders and 49ers. Presumably, Knapp will take it.

It seems pretty clear that Allen would prefer not to retain holdover OC Al Saunders–which was already crystal clear from Allen’s comments today. “Al Saunders is a guy that’s under contract right now,” Allen said.

I never saw Allen settling for Saunders as OC, anyway. Mark Davis got his guy, Reggie McKenzie got his guy, so Allen’s supposed to take someone else’s guy at the most crucial position on his new staff? For Raiders fans not used to this, if the choice is change vs. no-change, the McKenzie/Allen regime will probably choose the “change” option 99%, at least for now.

–Back to the original post…

Yes, it’s very different in Raidersland these days, from the owner on down. Especially with the owner.

Looser. More cordial. More normal. More accepting of basic truths (as in: undisciplined players hurt teams, not help them). Less rage.

It doesn’t mean this is all guaranteed to be successful any time soon. But it means the Raiders have a far greater shot at it–in the universe of teams that win big in the NFL, there are no raging, irrational ones.

Sorry, we all love the crazy irrationality, but it doesn’t work.

Instead of glaring out from the podium as we entered the Raiders theater (as his father did quite royally), Mark Davis popped out early today and did a little mingling before the official start.

He even said hello to me. I noted that there were only two seats at the podium (obviously for GM Reggie McKenzie and coach Dennis Allen) and Davis laughed.

“We can’t afford another chair,” he joked. Of course, Davis hired McKenzie to handle the public football stuff from now on.

So after doing the early introductions, Mark Davis quickly and quietly moved to a seat off to the side, and didn’t say another word during the formal press conference.

He has put his trust in Reggie McKenzie and McKenzie has put his full trust now in Dennis Allen.

Allen was big on that word today: Trust. That is NOT a word that was used–at least honestly–in the Raiders HQ between the coaching staff and front office in the last, oh, 20 years or so.

It’s possible that the last coach Al Davis ever really trusted was Tom Flores, and that was quite a long time ago.

But trust is the operative attitude now–McKenzie needed it, says he found it, and now he and Allen will move forward with that as their bond.

Which again explains why McKenzie’s first move was to remove Hue Jackson.

Question: Despite Jackson’s talents, could any GM trust Jackson after the stunts the coach pulled this season? And the preening after his firing?

Can a GM believe that private discussions with Jackson won’t get into somebody’s story or column, if it suited Jackson’s purposes?

No, nobody could believe that any more.

Maybe the McKenzie-Allen relationship will blow up, too. Under NFL pressure, even many of the GM-coach situations that start off wonderfully end up torn into shreds.

But this one at least has a chance for long-lasting, Packer-like faith and belief. And that’s something the Raiders haven’t been able to say… almost ever.

—–the column/

Reggie McKenzie looked like he wasn’t alone any more, and looked like he was enormously pleased and relieved by the development.

Up on the podium Monday, the Raiders general manager introduced his hand-picked coach, Dennis Allen, and then McKenzie exhaled and just kept smiling.

Later, I told McKenzie—an old linebacker–it looked like he’d just found a teammate to line up beside him.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it was,” McKenzie said. “You’ve got to have that. Because the NFL’s a hard business.”

The message was literal as well as figurative: McKenzie and Allen shoulder to shoulder, talking about a new day for the Raiders, and about to start with the process ASAP.

Clearly, McKenzie, in his first big move as the Raiders’ top football executive, was looking for more than Al Davis ever looked for (or wanted) in a coach.

McKenzie wanted someone else just as determined to end the kookier traditions of the Raiders’ past and turn this into a regular and successful team, once and for all.

We’ll see how Allen turns out—he certainly won’t lack for energy–but McKenzie wasn’t searching just for X’s and O’s and locker room management.

McKenzie, hired by new owner Mark Davis a few weeks ago, basically tabbed Allen to be his first lieutenant, co-worker, ally and, really, his equity partner in this grand endeavor.

McKenzie said he wants the kind of give-and-take relationship with Allen that Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren and then Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy had during McKenzie’s tenure with the Packers.

“We’re going to do this together,” McKenzie said at the press conference, nodding to Allen. “This is not ‘I got this, you got that.’

“The right hand will know what the left is doing. We’re in this thing together.”

It is, however, a bit of a leap of faith, since McKenzie had never actually met Allen, former Denver’s defensive coordinator, until their first interview earlier this month.

The candidates he knew best came from the Green Bay staff—Winston Moss and Dom Capers. But McKenzie heard good things about Allen, admired the Denver defense this season, and then went to Denver for their first interview.

In that conversation—which lasted about five hours, McKenzie said—Allen hit every button and talking point that McKenzie could have drawn up.

Discipline, passion, organization, aggressiveness, accountability…

“As the interview went, (the connection) just grew,” McKenzie said. “It was one of those things, if I had a little guy on my right shoulder, he said, ‘Yeah, that’s the guy.’”

So Raiders Nation has to trust McKenzie’s instincts on this.

He had to feel right about this. He had to find his guy. He wants no part of a coaching merry-go-round.

And after the second interview with Allen last week, McKenzie said there was no doubt.

Another obvious difference in the new Raiders: McKenzie gave Allen a four-year guaranteed contract (the NFL standard), when Al Davis’ tradition was to give coaches only two guaranteed years.

McKenzie said he wouldn’t discuss any contract details for coaches or players (or himself, though McKenzie laughed when I suggested he gave Allen the same number of years that Mark Davis gave him).

“I will tell you I’m committed to coach Dennis Allen,” McKenzie said, “and what we’re going to do in the next few years.”

That is not how Al Davis ever addressed these matters—committing to a coach was never his style and it was his right to do it whatever way he wanted.

But that led to a series of weak, dissembling head coaches, and in the current NFL, that is the exact recipe for failing to make the playoffs.

This is different. Allen is McKenzie’s pick, and the commitment is there, from owner Mark Davis to McKenzie to Allen

No question, the new, young coach is intense and will demand discipline from his players.

In many ways, the 39-year-old Allen’s performance on Monday was reminiscent of the explosive way Mike Nolan took over the 49ers in 2005.

(Nolan didn’t do the coaching part well, but definitely freshened and sharpened the franchise’s mindset.)

More importantly, McKenzie and Allen made it clear that they are a tandem.

“The people who are leading the organization now are Mark Davis and Reggie McKenzie,” Allen said, “and when I looked across the table at Reggie McKenzie, I knew that was a man that I believed in and that I trusted in.”

That wasn’t the vibe when Lane Kiffin sat next to Al Davis at his introduction, or Tom Cable with Al Davis, or Hue Jackson with Al, or any of the last several Raiders coaches.

This is new. This is almost certainly better, but, as McKenzie and Allen know, it all depends on them.